I AM A SONIC BOOMER, NOT A SENIOR... In this blog, I am writing to and for those who believe that the Boomers will change what the word Senior means. I also believe that Boomers will change what retirement means in our society. The blog is also for those who are interested in what life after retirement may look like for them. In this blog I highlight and write about issues that I believe to be important both for Seniors and working Boomers.

Saturday, August 6, 2016

Friend in need; maybe not

Fraud is a crime, and many seniors fall for this scam. I was in
Pemberton BC, giving a workshop on Scams and Frauds and at the end one of the
participants approached me and told me she had received an email from a friend
who appeared to be in trouble. She was concerned because of the message she had
been sent. She shared the email with me.

Am so sorry that i didn’t inform you
about my trip. I’m writing this with tears in my eyes. I came down here to
Odessa Ukraine for a short vacation unfortunately i was mugged at the park of
the hotel where i stayed. all cash, credit card and cell were stolen off me but
luckily for me i still have my passports with me.

I ‘ve been to the embassy and the
Police here but they’re not helping issues at all and my flight leaves in less
than hours from now but having problems settling the hotel bills. the hotel
manager won’t let us leave until i settle the bills, I’m freaked out at the
moment.

I advised her not to respond and later I found out that this was an
email scam, so I did some research and thanks to the good folks at AVG here is
some information about this type of fraud.

Using various communications channels to finagle money or information
from someone has a long and varied history. Many of the scams rely on the
promise of easy returns. The Nigerian Prince is a case in point. The scam
is similar to the 19th Century Spanish
Prisoner scenario, but has usually relied mainly on mail, faxes, and
email as part of a multistage setup that targets people with enough money to
supposedly help smuggle millions of dollars out of an African country, often
Nigeria (hence the name). Those that take the bait and pay the (fake) transfer
fees are promised exponential returns on their investments that never emerge. There are scores of variations on the scam. For instance, a long-lost relative
leaves a person a pile of money; to get the inheritance, the person needs to
pay all the legal fees. But in general, most of these scams rely on greed to
hook interest.

By contrast, “stranded friend” phishing attacks take advantage of a
reader’s good will. We all want to help people we know and like. I certainly
do. In this case, the con men had used malware (probably a Trojan) to hack her friend’s email account and
access her contacts. The message was addressed to around two dozen people. It’s
unclear whether the hackers created their shortlist of targets using the
communications history between my friend and her contacts or their geographic
locations, but it seems likely given that other scams employ similar tactics.
For example, hacked mailing lists from charitable organizations allow bad guys
to set up fake charities and target the people most likely to donate based on
past activity.

Email is cheap and easy. By stealing or buying stolen databases,
scammers can obtain access to hundreds of thousands of addresses. With a bit of
segmentation, they put the odds in their favor that someone will bite on their
hooks.

Criminals have access to the same analytics as governments and major
corporations. They’ve also been practicing their trade for decades (sometimes
centuries), so have tremendous insight into how best to influence even the
strongest of minds. To stay sharp, there are several things you can do:

1.Know what phishing
is. Awareness is a huge step towards prevention. Knowing that the scammers
are out there and masquerading as trusted contacts goes a long way to spotting
them.

2.Know what they’re
after. Any email requests (or social media for that matter) asking for money should be immediately
suspect. So too requests asking for personal data or account names and passwords.

3.Watch for the signs. In addition to
requests for money or hints that money may be needed, watch for poor spelling, bad grammar, and other oddities of speech.
Check the email address itself – it may look like the supposed sender’s, but
check for missing characters or additional characters added in. Pretty much all
banks and most government and commercial organizations never ask for personal
information, login information, or money via email; so if this information is
part of the request, be very suspicious.

4.Never click, copy,
paste, or forward. For any email even remotely suspicious, do not click on anything, do
not copy text and paste it into another email or document, and do not forward.
To document the email (for alerting your friend or a company), the best
approach is to take a screen shot.

5.Don’t reply Your reply tells the
conmen that you pay attention to and open such emails. The bad guys will note
this, and quite possibly save your email for another, more tempting scam later
on.

The steps above may not be foolproof. But they can help ensure the
adoption of a security mindset.

Finally, remember the fraudster is well trained and without a conscious. The most common form of getting to you is through Phishing. Which is convenient, in a way, as there are some practical steps you can take to avoid getting scammed. Probably the most important is to maintain an online “stranger danger” mindset. If an email looks even the slightest bit suspicious, don’t open it. If it’s from someone you don’t know, don’t open it. If it says you’ve won the lottery, are being watched by some security agency, asks about an order (you did not make), or promises rewards in some other way, don’t open it. (Similar phishing attacks also appear on Facebook.)

For emails you’ve opened, if they include links or attachments you weren’t expecting or didn’t ask for, don’t click or download. If you feel that you must do either, reply to the sender (if you know them), and ask if they did indeed send you something. If you do not know the sender – delete the email.

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This is a valentine thought for my retired and soon to be retired friends. When you watch television or the movies, you could come to th...

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About Me

I was raised on Vancouver Island and in 1965, left to become a charter student of Simon Fraser University I graduated with a degree in Economics and Commerce in 1969; got on with life and then 25 years later graduated with my Masters in Educational Technology from City University in Seattle.

I started teaching in Surrey in 1973, but in 2000, I also started teaching at the University of Phoenix, Vancouver Campus. I became Area Chair for Curriculum and Instruction in 2005 but within four years, Phoenix closed its Vancouver Campus. I fully retired in 2012.

I served on the Board of SHARE Family & Community Services. The Society is a non- profit, independent, community based organization providing leadership and programs in response to the social needs of the residents of the Tri-Cities. I currently write a blog about issues important to Boomers as well as a blog about Personalized Gift Giving